Love Beyond the End of Time
by FWvidChick
Summary: In 2212 there is a letter from Superman to the world about the love of his life.


**Rating:** PG  
**Theme: **Love, thoughtful, heartbreak and happiness.  
**Summary:**In 2212 there is a letter from Superman to the world about the love of his life.

Can also be read on my blog or Ksite

**A/N: **I was laying in bed not even a week ago when I had this idea, plot bunny attack, literally in the middle of the night. It pestered me so much I was forced to write this. I hope it stirs in others what it does inside of me.

Thanks to Kaylee for beta-ing, my migraine and whack to the head induced mess.

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**Love Beyond the End of Time  
**ღ

I watch my son out of the corner of my eye as he goes to sit on that bench near the back of the Superman Memorial park. After a few moments of staring at the ground, shoulders slumped he looks up at the holographic display. A replica of a letter written almost 15 years ago.

My son would come here often that first year as he came to accept the loss of his hero. Someone the world mourned with him. Since then he came whenever he struggled to sort out his life.

He'll read the letter several times and ponder the words and the life of the one who wrote them. The man behind the hero. Today though I know he is here because he can relate to them on another level. A heartbreak felt throughout time, the passing of love.

As a mother I want to protect him but I can't. I shouldn't. Instead tonight I'll let him absorb what truths he gains from the venture and then give him the only gift I have left. Maybe, just maybe, it will give him solace and strength.

I have read those same words many times, they are burned into my heart. I give him some space and I repeat them to myself so that I can perhaps see through my son's eyes as he sees through Superman's.

_Dear citizens of Earth – my adopted family,_

_I write this because for some time now I have been unable to fulfill my obligations. I'd like to say that it's because of age or something of a similar nature. Truth is I am only half of who I once was and have been for some time. I feel you deserve to know why, though in order to do so I need to take you back in time to when I was a boy. I know that much of my early life has come out in some shape or form. There is, however, a part that has been withheld and hidden, a part that is the main force of how I became Superman._

_It is true I grew up on a farm in place once called Smallville. Contrary to what some stories suggest I did not know I was alien or I was that different when I was young. My powers developed over time in strength and number so what at first was just small differences were later continent sized gaps. I only knew for the longest time that I wasn't the same as everyone else and that I was adopted. For the most part I was fine, my parents loved me and treated me as their own. With a loving family, friends and happy memories I had nothing to complain about._

_It changed when I was fourteen in a number of ways. I began to notice that I was becoming invulnerable to injuries, I developed super speed and the many questions began. Friendships were forged and others changed along with the revelation that I was not from this world. Life continued to change dramatically and I strove harder than ever to be 'normal' fighting my heritage and eventual destiny out of fear._

_Growing up for anyone has its fair share of angst and drama. Mine was no different. My first love was with a girl that I watched first from afar and then at a painful nearness that even when I had her affection in return, that strange distance existed between us. Our love wasn't meant to be for a number of reasons and I struggled for the longest time to accept this._

_Beside the pain of this un-destined love I lost my father. A man who helped me understand that who I am was not based on powers or lack of them. But on my actions or inaction. That we all make mistakes and have to learn to overcome them. My father was far from perfect, it was through his own faults I learned so much and learned to appreciate the man he was trying to teach me to be. After losing him I became angry and I made choices I later regretted. For the longest time I believed I had failed to live up to expectations, that I had failed to become the man my father wanted me to be._

_Yet it was through another girl I began a journey to seeing my self differently. It's funny.. you never imagine that the perfect person for you is the one person who can cause you to ache in ways you didn't know you were capable of._

_This girl became the love of my life, I met her in my senior year in high school. I wasn't able to see the impact she had on me at first, or understand the connection between us. Our relationship from the get-go was filled with banter and barbs, and laced with a hidden friendship, that looking back I know we both needed far more than we would have admitted to then._

_This woman challenged me in every way. With a twinkle in her eye she'd push my buttons, insulted my dress sense and left me bewildered and secretly I loved her for it. She was there for me when I needed her most, sometimes only by the well thrown barb she'd send my way and other times by the simple act of a hug. As the years went on and we grew older I found that the destiny I was fighting wasn't so bad. That in fact it was the calling I'd been looking for all that time._

_The more I viewed my life, the one I kept hidden, through her eyes the more I understood that I had found my place. Even more importantly that woman became the most important person in my life. I fell in love with her and it took losing her for three weeks to face that. It is true you don't know what you have until you no longer have it._

_I spent weeks in place of painful contemplation and self-analysis. I wasn't who I thought I was. That I couldn't be just the hero, I needed the life I once had. I was less and not more. This epiphany did not happen in an instant but over time, in these moments with her. The first being the moment she reappeared in my life. One look at her beautiful face after three long weeks and my world was right again._

_I still tried to tell myself I would remain dead and be the Blur. I could not..knowing she was back in the world called to me. Reminded me that there was still good in humanity, for I had come to feel that my care for this world had blinded me to its horrors, that I could not have a human life._

_She was my equilibrium, she was home. It was another year of change. To make amends, to balance who I was and how I acted. To see it all anew. My love took my heart that year and I followed her. Though in all the positive and all the mistakes there was one major problem. She did not know that I was the Blur. To her I was just her farm boy..her Smallville._

_I am lucky to have found someone like her. The most amazing woman would come to know the truth of who I was by what I believed was a kiss goodbye. To save the world I thought I would have to leave it. Events did not play out that way and she saved my life. Instead of being frightened or hurt by my secret, she tried to encourage me in some of my darkest hours without letting me know she knew._

_I look back and I find it funny I did not see it. That I was unable to tell she had a secret because of my secret. In the end, I could not hold it in another moment and risk losing her any more than either of us could pretend we could ever just be friends._

_To love this woman was to love a shooting star, a super nova or rising sun. A brilliant light that brought dreams and hopes with it. She lit up my sky. Through the years together she pushed me to greater heights in desperate hours, kept me grounded when I could have developed a super ego. Her passion to fight against corruption and to put forth the truth I sometimes feel out did my own. That mouth of hers – put to paper brought down criminals my powers couldn't touch. She not only inspired me, she inspired others._

_When my mother died she was there and kept me whole. When our friends passed away she gave me solace. Our life together was good and when I lost her I found for a time I could go on despite the agony. I love this world, it is my home, you it's people are my family. But my wife was my hope, my faith and my sun. It has been many years without her and I regret none of them in the service to you. But my time has come, the splitting of this heart can no longer be ignored. For all invulnerability or super strength I am weak like everyone else to a broken heart._

_I have made a decision I've avoided for many years. To hang up my cape. You don't need me the way you once did I have come to accept this, I know eventually you will too. You will not be left vulnerable, I leave you all in the hands of hero's who have earned your trust and mine. Some of this world and some not, and I have faith in you to be their family as well. To be their hope as they are yours. Be the best of humanity, fight for all that is good. Justice, truth, and hope._

_I don't know where I will go only that I must find her. Somewhere out there, maybe under some distant sun is a reflection of her face. A place where I can see her again. Beyond death, beyond life..beyond what's known or unknown._

_I, Superman, loved a woman of this world. A woman who could never be my equal physically but who was my equal by her very nature. Her flaws were her perfections, her soul rivaled the beauty of her form. The taste of her lips is still fresh in my memory even after hundreds of years._

_I am who I am because of my wife who encouraged the best of me. When you talk about this, when you write your histories remember that no hero -Super or otherwise. Whether it be the good Samaritan, a neighbor, a stranger or one in the skies. Not one can make it wholly complete without a hero of their own._

_Lois Joanne Lane was my wife and my hero, the other half of my soul. I will love her till the end of time and even then I will love her._

_- Clark Kent – Superman_

_(First printed addition in the year 2198)_

The world had been surprised to learn so much that day and yet lose their hero. For with one last flight over Metropolis Superman waved good-bye and left this world. He was right..we did not need him to be okay. We had our hero's in all shapes and sizes but our Hero needed something we could not give him.

I hope he found what he was looking for. I can't imagine what it must have been like to live all those years without her. Incomplete.

Tomorrow I will impart a family secret to my son as Superman imparted this truth to the world. A family secret first done out of necessity , to keep us safe. After a while it was just kept. Only passed on from generation to generation when deemed necessary.

It was necessary now.

When dawn breaks I will tell him he's a descendant of his hero and that love. Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane will never be forgotten. Their love is now part of history, an inspiration and its legacy lives on. A secret but not a shame.

Hope.

ஐ

Wat cha think?


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